


Sing me something

by justified_ways



Category: Pocket Monsters: Red & Green & Blue & Yellow | Pokemon Red Green Blue Yellow Versions, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 14:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5669707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justified_ways/pseuds/justified_ways
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Rick Grimes saw Daryl Dixon’s pokémon, he thought he’d hit his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing me something

**Author's Note:**

> Original prompt: The world is filled with Pokemon and Walkers. Daryl is the proud trainer of a Jigglypuff.
> 
> But really, there is no excuse. Just a bit of fun.

 

* * *

 

 

_The first time Rick Grimes saw Daryl Dixon’s pokémon, he thought he’d hit his head._

 

The hunter leans against his pick-up truck, arms folded in front of his chest and a murderous look in his eyes. The crossbow on his back, one of his dirty boots resting on the wheel of his ride, the perfect picture of an angry redneck. Dark eyes watch how the rest of the group packs up their tents and belongings.

Glenn and Andrea struggle to get their tents down but Daryl refuses to lend a hand. In the end, Rick makes his way over, throwing Daryl a nasty glare which only causes the hunter to arch an eyebrow, and helps them to get their stuff into the RV.

When he closes the door to the motorhome, Rick turns on his heels and catches the materialization of Daryl’s Pokémon.

A snaking of red in the sky, the glow of a pokéball opening, the form snapping into existence.

Daryl yawns and turns towards the glowing form, hands nowhere near his belt, where the rest of his pokéballs still hang. ‘Hey, bud,’ he says, ‘tired of bein’ cooped up?’

‘ _Jiggly_ puff!’

‘Yeah,’ Daryl nods, ‘me too.’

On the hood of his beat-up pick-up truck sits a Jigglypuff. The Pokémon is bright pink, small and nothing what Rick expected Daryl’s primary to be like. Huge, innocent blue eyes stare up at the hunter, triangle ears twitching when it giggles softly, mewling its own name. Rick isn’t sure what he’d expected, really. A Marowak, maybe. Or a Scyther. Something fierce and cunning and wild, not a little pink ball of fur.

‘Jigglypuff?’

Daryl shrugs. ‘Good a place as any.’

‘Jiggly _puff_.’

The corner of Daryl’s mouth quirks upwards in a fleeting smile. He looks at his Pokémon, ‘yeah, you’re right. Fuck them.’

The little Pokémon suddenly seems to puff up, the huge eyes turning small in dismay, tiny paws quivering with anger. ‘ _Jigglypuff!_ ’

‘Just yankin’ yar chain,’ Daryl laughs as he scoops the little creature up and puts it on his shoulder where it nuzzles his cheek and ear. He tilts his head a little so their faces press together for a second. ‘Let’s get to it then,’ he walks off towards where Carol is struggling to take down her tent. He passes Rick. ‘What’re ya starin’ at, officer? Don’t got nothin’ to do now? C’mon, we’re burnin’ daylight here.’

Rick can’t do anything but stare.

 

_The second time Rick saw Daryl’s Pokémon, he still couldn’t believe it._

 

Daryl is made of shadows as he sleeps by the campfire. Pure exhaustion finally felled the hunter. The knife on his belt is covered with blood, the strap of his crossbow is wrapped around his wrist to keep it close to him, even in his sleep. There’s grime and dust on his clothes and face.

The rest of the group moves around him silently. They eat the meat he provided earlier, sit by a safe hide-out thanks to his efforts.

Daryl shifts in his sleep, frowning unhappily, boots scraping over the ground.

Rick is sitting next to him, chewing on a piece of rabbit. He hears the pokéball click open before the red lights greets him.

It’s not unusual for pokéballs to active on their own. A lot of Pokémon don’t like being cooped up anymore inside their little shells now that there is danger for their trainers everywhere. They can’t always help with walkers, but most feel better if they’re there to face the dangers with them.

Arcanine is curled up on the other side of Rick. The orange coat of his Pokémon matches the flames before them.

Rick glances at Daryl at the click and red light, eager to see which of his Pokémon decided to show itself. There are six pokéballs on the hunter’s belt. Rick only knows about one of them.

‘Jigglypuff.’

Rick breathes out a huff of laughter.

Jigglypuff looks up at him with surprise eyes, so big that they take up about half of its face. A quivering lower lip, that tuff of pink hair, it’s far too cute to belong to Daryl Dixon. But the Pokémon huffs a little and turns, burying itself in the hunter’s arms, snuggling up to his face. The pink hair blends with brown.

Daryl’s arm comes up, rounds on the small Pokémon as if to check whether it’s really there. One blue eyes cracks open sleepily. ‘Hey bud,’ he murmurs, voice hoarse.

‘Jigglypuff.’

‘Hmm-hmm,’ Daryl nods, eyes closing again. ‘Yeah. All right,’ and then he’s asleep once more.

Rick glances at Arcanine, who seems curious and confused.

‘Jigglypuff, jigglypuff,’ the small Pokémon says, all sparkling blue eyes and pinkness. It sounds like a warning.

Rick gives it a small smile and puts his hand on Arcanine’s back, fingers digging into fur, holding on. ‘We’re keeping watch too,’ he tells the small thing. ‘We got him.’

‘ _Jigglypuff_!’

‘You, _you_ got him,’ Rick says quickly.

The pink Pokémon huffs and turns to its trainer, nuzzling the brown hair.

Daryl smiles in his dreams.

 

 

_The third time, he kind of started to get it._

 

It’s not that Jigglypuff is Daryl’s only Pokémon. He has five others, each of them so disciplined and strong that they sometimes put Arcanine to shame.

He has a Jolteon, Sandslash, Gengar, Poliwhirl, and a Primeape, too.

Rick has seen Daryl walking through the woods with Jolteon at his heels, a quiet shadow of lightning and snarls, so in tune with each other that they barely need to say a word before taking down a walker or sniffing out a rabbit. It goes down with a bolt, of metal or lightning.

Other times Daryl sits by a campfire, Gengar ghosting at his elbow, pulling faces at other Pokémon to bait them, a deadly poltergeist that is easily tempered by a glance from its trainer.

But Jigglypuff is the one who comes out when Daryl is relaxed or sleeping. A puff of pinkness in his lap, the high-pitched voice carrying into the night. He sometimes sits on the hunter’s shoulder, tugging at the brown hair that’s getting too long to get the trainer’s attention, or petting it when he’s about to fall asleep.

The group knows better than to comment on it. Glenn had, once. And he’s woken up with the marks of a black permanent marker on his face. Crude little paintings, jagged lines like scars, petty insults.

‘Why a jigglypuff?’ Rick asks one afternoon when they’re up in the guard tower. ‘I mean, she was your first, right? You didn’t catch it. You chose it.’

‘Just did,’ Daryl says as he smokes his cigarette.

‘Most eleven year old boys wouldn’t pick a singing pink ball of fluff,’ Rick points out.

‘Call ‘em that again and I’ll break your nose.’

‘I picked mine because he was – you know – _cool_. Strong.’

‘Jigs is plenty strong.’

‘Its main attack is _singing_.’

‘Which puts ya to sleep,’ Daryl says with a shrug, ‘ever won a fight while ya’re unconscious? No, so shut up. Ya don’t know shit.’

The hunter leaves without another word. Rick watches how he stalks back to the prison. In the dark, two eyes bob along beside him, glowing in the dark. Gengar smirks, pulls at the sides of his mouth and sticks his tongue out at Rick.

 

Maggie takes over his watch a couple of hours later. Rick wanders through the prison until he ends up at the little nest Daryl calls his bedroom. A corner on the landing, really. But there he lies, on his belly with his feet up in the air, hands propping his chin up.

Jigglypuff is sitting on his pillow.

‘- don’t care,’ Daryl mutters. ‘Fuck ‘em.’

‘Jigglypuff? Jiggly-jigglypuff.’

‘Tomorrow,’ Daryl nods, ‘Gengar‘s comin’ with.’

‘Jigglypuff!’

Daryl snorts, ‘remember last time _we_ went huntin’? Ya put me right to sleep, nine days, ya probably thought it was your fuckin’ award show or somethin’. ‘Sides, nothing is more quiet than a _ghost_.’

‘Jigglypuff-puff, jigglypuff.’

‘Yeah, and he’s kinda funny too. C’mon, get some sleep now. Sing me something?’

The Pokémon perks up, all wide eyes and smiles, a wriggling pink puff of excitement. It jumps to its little feet, brandishing a black marker out of nowhere and holding it up like a microphone.

‘Ya know the drill,’ Daryl murmurs as he puts his head on the pillow, closing his eyes, ‘just me, now.’

The jigglypuff slumps a little but slides over to its trainer, black marker to its lips and lips almost to an ear. It sings, so soft that Rick can’t hear, but Daryl yawns, puts an arm around his first Pokémon and sleeps.

Only now does Rick realize that Daryl has been the only one of the group who has never woken up from nightmares, screaming.

 

_The fourth time, Rick doesn’t see Jigglypuff, but hears about it instead._

 

Merle looks at Rick with amazement. After a second, he pulls himself together and leers at the former cop. ‘You really don’t know nothin’ about that boy, huh? Oh, he’s nice, all right. Always been sweet, my baby brother.’ He laughs cruelly. ‘But he don’t need nobody to watch his ass, officer. He’s been lookin’ after himself for longer than he oughta have.’

Rick sighs, ‘just – when we’re out there? Just look after him. He’s got a _jigglypuff_ for Christ sake.’

‘And it’ll claw your eyes out while you sleep.’ Merle sucks on his cigarette and grins at the other man. ‘Never been on the receiving end of one of Jigs’ punishments, huh? Well, let me tell you something, son. That boy gets mad at you? Oh-oh _oh_!’ He hoots. ‘Hell to pay, man. _Hell to pay_.’

The man’s raichu, a mean looking thing covered with battle scars, shivers and disappears into his pokéball.

‘See, that’s my brother for ya,’ Merle smirks with pride in his eyes. ‘Looks so innocent, but close your eyes, look away for a split second, and ya’ll be _wishing_ ya were dead.’

 

_The fifth time… the fifth time Rick knows why they’re a perfect match._

 

‘ _Judith_!’ Rick scrambles to his feet, pushing Glenn out of the way as he tears up the stairs. Panic courses through his body as he slips around the corner, thunders over the landing and barges into his cell.

‘She’s fine, man. I got her.’ Daryl looks up from where he’s leaning against the wall. His knife is dripping with blood. There are three walkers on the floor, truly dead now.

‘What – where,’ Rick breathes, eyes frantically searching for his daughter.

‘She’s sleeping,’ Daryl nods at the crib he’s standing next to.

‘She slept through that?’ Rick asks as he staggers forward to look at his child. A part of the prison had given out, walkers had invaded their quarters. The guns. The screaming. It had been deafening.

‘Yup,’ Daryl murmurs, ‘I’m gonna check on the rest. Ya got her, right?’

‘Yeah… yeah. Thanks, Daryl.’ He grabs the hunter’s shoulder to make him meet his eyes. ‘Really. I don’t know what I would have done if… Thank you.’

‘’s what we do,’ Daryl nods and slinks away.

Rick lifts Judith from the crib, kissing her forehead tenderly. As he embraces her, he spots the black marker clenched in the little girl’s hand. He walks out of the cell, looks down at Daryl.

 

The hunter lobes down the stairs. A knife in one hand. A pokéball in the other.


End file.
